The funeral for Bluestar 7 was two urns full of ashes and a picture of Phil. Randall was entitled to full military honors, but that would happen later, after his remains were flown back home.

He should have been put in a casket with a flag on it, but there wasn’t enough left of his body to stitch back together, so they just cremated what they could and put a folded flag by his picture.

It was weird to see an American flag again. The old people kept staring at it, while the young people didn’t even know what it was.

Jade’s family was pretty traditional, and cremation was normal for them. It was surreal and heartbreaking to see a picture of Jade as a normal person, a smiling young girl instead of a sneering, cynical superhero, captured in a perfect moment under the California sun.

What happened to that girl? Had she died when Jade’s body died, or had she died a long time ago, the first time Jade dug her claws into something that had a name?

Randall’s wife and kid were there, Jade’s extended family was there, and Phil was represented by one old man who had to be helped to his seat. This must have been Mister Steiner, the machine shop guy who adopted Phil as a boy and taught him everything he knew.

Any other day, I would have gone straight up to him and told him how much Phil loved him, how much Phil learned from him, and how grateful Phil was for the simple family he had been able to provide.

Phil said his adopted father was never an emotional man, but some men are like that. They don’t show their emotions with words; they show their love by how they teach, and I know Phil understood that, and saw the love in every piece of metal the two of them shaped together.

This was the memorial service for all three of them. The real funerals would happen miles away, as each family took their remains home and remembered them as people.

But this wasn’t a memorial service for the people. This was a memorial service for the symbols, a chance for corporate execs and forgotten politicians to step up and sound important, while they praised the sacrifice these heroes, and so many other heroes, had made for the city.

I’d thought really hard about skipping the service. I thought it might even be offensive, for the families to have to endure the sight of the man who got their loved ones killed.

But these people had been my friends, my trainers, and my partners, and while everybody else in the world might see me as a coward and a fuckup, these were the only three people who would really understand. I followed orders and did my job to the very end. Randall would be right there defending me, if he had lived.

So, in the end, I didn’t just come to that service to pay my respects, I came to that funeral because I needed comfort. I needed comfort from the spirits of teammates who would understand why I did what I did, and to know they would forgive me for it, even if their families never could.

The general public didn’t know the whole story, of course, and they never would. They didn’t know this was personal, that I had called out a demon lord and gotten a whole city punished for it.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

They would never see the footage of the team getting killed. They wouldn’t even see the footage of me, unconscious with my soul sucked out, surrounded by a protective circle of demons, looking like a traitor who had sold his team out, and got dragged to Hell anyway.

All they knew is my team died but their anchor lived. The guy who was supposed to die first lived, leading everyone to believe I had panicked and run away. Easy to believe with a guy who had only been on the job for a few months.

My HDI media block was still keeping my name and image off the news, so I was just “the new guy on Bluestar 7,” one of a dozen nameless, faceless heroes who had tried to join the team and failed to make the cut.

The difference was, this time, the incompetent newbie had survived, while the three heroes people knew and loved were dead.

I waited until everybody cleared out. Endured a dozen slow, meandering speeches from people who barely knew them, and one short, sincere goodbye from Elton Vanderhoff, who recorded a simple audio message, with none of his usual theatrics.

I thought I had managed to dodge everybody who might have been offended by me, but apparently, I had not been the only one hanging back.

Paul Zhang came up beside me as I was saying goodbye, peering at me like he was trying to read my mind.

“If you want to know what I’m thinking, you can just ask,” I said.

“Okay,” he said. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking maybe I could have saved them, if I had just trained a little harder.”

“Yeah,” Paul said. “Maybe you’ll do that next time.”

* * *

Minerva and Kyle were waiting for me as I walked out. Is it creepy to say they looked good in mourning clothes? They really were an amazing couple, on those rare occasions when no one was watching, and they were allowed to stand next to each other.

I didn’t want to see her. I didn’t want to look at her. And I sure as hell did not want to hear what she said next.

Kyle stayed behind as Minerva walked up to me. “I want you to know I don’t blame you for this. I would have done exactly the same thing in your place. I would have followed orders, and done my best, even if my best wasn’t good enough.

“I won’t hold you responsible for anything demons did, or for any crazy hypotheticals about what you might have done. Everybody loves to point out what we should have done from the safety of their armchairs once all the danger has passed.

“Most of the footage with you in it has been scrubbed, so most of the heat is falling on the DMA, asking why they didn’t bring me in, asking why they didn’t bring everybody in - forgetting that all the big teams were fighting their own battles when Boston was under siege.

“If it was up to me, you’d be going back to work tomorrow, but it’s not up to me. Harry usually does this part, but I volunteered, because I wanted you to hear this from me.

“Tim, I think you could be one of the greatest heroes of your generation, but I need you to believe that, before you try to join a team again.”

Minerva held her palm out, and I put my badge in her hand. The little plastic window painted the word REVOKED in big black letters over my face, and I was just Tim Kovak again.

* * *

Denise didn’t make the funeral because she was out of town - way, way out of town.

She didn’t have time for a big back and forth with me, so she left me a message in the middle of the night:

“Tim, Mom and I have been called to an emergency overseas and I’ve got like ten minutes to call everybody I know. It’s a long story, but Mom is on retainer with the Egyptian government, or y’know, whatever corporation is pretending to be their government this week.

“Whenever something breaks out of a tomb, they call us, and we have to grab our bags and catch an orbital. I hate leaving you like this, but the money Mom gets from this, it’s the only thing keeping the shop open, and she can’t do it without me.

“I’ll call when I can, okay? Please, don’t let this eat at you, and don’t let these bastards tell you what you are! Whatever happens, we’ll fix it when we get back, okay? Whatever they do, Mom can fix it, just hang on.”